New Lutheran Quote of the Day

Lutherans themselves have often paid insufficient attention to what the Apology actually teaches in VII/VIII.5. This crucial sentence does not say that the church is not a fellowship of outward things and rites, etc. Rather it says this: "The church is not only a fellowship of outward things and rites, like other polities, but it is chiefly a fellowship of faith and the Holy Spirit in the heart..."—Prof. Kurt Marquart, The Church, p. 24.